We’ve been getting some questions about how we customize our apachesolr results by content type. The answer: very simply. We use views php. Views php allows us several new field type in views including a place to put custom PHP. It also has the advantage of allowing you to pull in variables already loaded into your view. Thus while it is possible to write queries to the database in the php area, it is not necessary. Moreover if you have need to tables not typically available in views you may use the data module to gain access.

While there are several fields available in the Views PHP field I tend to use the output field area. To hide the actual complete results

Using available variables in views php

this makes it so that you can add a few lines of logic and have the results better reflect the information. For our librarians we output their profile picture linked to their email address, for our web results we provide link descriptions etc.

Excluding results from display allows the results to be available to views php without cluttering the patrons view

Just remember to exclude your fields from display so that the user isn’t presented with hundreds of fields and you’re good to go.